none (27 page)

“Now tell me, my children, how does it go with you in Arilinn?”

Kerwin, watching Lord Hastur, thought:
 
I wish I could tell that old fellow about the heaved rock!

There’s no nonsense to Lord Hastur; he’d know what to make of it, and no mistake
 
!

The curtains at the entrance moved. Valdir said ceremoniously, “The Lady Elorie, Keeper of Arilinn.”

Once again her small stately body seemed weighted with the cruelly heavy ceremonial robes. The goldenchains at her waist and fastening her cloak seemed almost fetterlike with their weight; they clasped at hershoulders, heavy, a burden. In silence, not looking at any of them, she moved to the thronelike chair atthe head of the table. Valdir’s deep bow startled Kerwin no less than the Lord Hastur, who rose in hisplace and bowed the knee deeply to Elorie.

Kerwin watched, paralyzed; this was the same girl who played with her pet birds in the great hall, andquarreled with Taniquel and made silly bets with Rannirl and rode like a hoyden with her hawks; he hadnot seen her before in the full regalia of the Keeper, and it was a shock and a revelation. He felt as if hetoo should bow, but Taniquel touched his wrist and he heard the unspoken thought:

The Tower Circle at Arilinn, alone in the Domains, need not rise for their Keeper. The Keeper of Arilinn is sacrosanct; but we are her own, her chosen
. There was pride in Taniquel’s thought, and Kerwin felt a flicker of it, too; even Hastur could not refuse deference to the Keeper of Arilinn.
 
So in asense we are more powerful than the Regent of the Seven Domains
 
…

“Welcome, in the name of Evanda and Avarra,” Elorie said in her soft throaty voice. “How may Arilinn

serve the son of the Hasturs,
 
vai dom
 
?”

“Your words brighten the sky,
 
vai leronis
 
,” Hastur replied, and Elorie motioned him to resume his seat.

Kennard said, “It’s a long time since you honored us with a visit to Arilinn, Lord Hastur. And we arehonored indeed, but if you’ll forgive me, we know you didn’t come to do us honor, or to have a look at Jeff Kerwin, or to bring me messages about the Council, or even to let me visit my father and ask aboutthe health of my sons. Nor, I venture to say, even for the pleasure of our company. What do you wantwith us, Lord Hastur?”

Page 100

The Regent’s face crinkled up in a pleasant grin.

“I should have known you’d see through me, Ken,” he said. “When Arilinn can spare you, we need someone like you in Council; Valdir is too diplomatic. You’re right, of course; I came from Thendara because we have a delegation waiting— with the big question.”

All of them, except Kerwin, seemed to know what he meant. Rannirl muttered, “So soon?”

“You haven’t given us much time, Lord Hastur,” Elorie said. “Jeff’s making good progress, but it’s

slow.”

Kerwin leaned forward, gripping at the chair arm.

“What’s this all about, why are you looking at me?”

Hastur said, solemnly, “Because, Jeff Kerwin-Aillard, you have given us, for the first time in many years,a Tower Circle with a full complement of power, under a Keeper. If you do not fail us, we may be in aposition to save the power and prestige of the Comyn—if you do not fail us. Otherwise—” He spread hishands. “The Terrans will have their entering wedge. The rest will follow and there won’t be any way tostop it. I want you—all of you—to come and talk to the delegation. What about it, Elorie? Do you trustyour Terran barbarian as much as that?”

In the silence that followed, Kerwin felt Elorie’s glance, calm, childlike, resting on him.

Barbarian. Elorie’s barbarian. I’m still that, to all of them.

Elorie turned to Kennard and said quietly, “What about it, Ken? You know him best.”

By now Kerwin was used to being discussed before his face. In a telepath society there was no way toavoid it anyway. Even if they had tactfully sent him out of the room, he would have been aware of whatwas being said. He tried to keep his face impassive.

Kennard sighed and said, “As far as trusting goes, we can trust him, Elorie,” he said. “But the risk isyours and so the decision has to be yours. Whatever you decide, we’ll stand by you.”

“I speak against it,” Auster said passionately. “You know how I feel—you too, Lord Hastur!”

Hastur turned to the younger man and said, “Is it blind prejudice against Terrans, Auster?” His calmmanner contrasted curiously with Auster’s tense, knotted face and angry voice. “Or have you somereason?”

“Prejudice,” Taniquel said angrily, “and jealousy!”

“Prejudice, yes,” Auster admitted, “but not, I think, blind. It was entirely too easy to get him from the

Terrans. How do we know that the whole thing wasn’t concocted for our benefit?”

Valdir said, in his deep voice, “With Cleindori’s face written in his own? He has Comyn blood.”

“I think, by your leave,” Auster said, “that you, too, are prejudiced, Lord Valdir. You, with your Terran

foster-son and half-caste grandson—”

Page 101

Kennard leaped to his feet. “Now, damn it, Auster—

“And you speak of Cleindori!” As he spoke it, the word was an epithet, a foulness. “She who was

Dorilys of Arilinn—renegade, heretic—”

Elorie rose, angry and white. “Cleindori is dead. Let her lie in peace! And Zandru send scorpion whipsto those who murdered her!”

“And to her seducer—
 
and all his blood
!” Auster flung back. “We all know Cleindori was not alone

when she fled from Arilinn—”

New, unaccustomed emotions were battling in Jeff Kerwin. This was his father, his unknown mother,that they were cursing! For the first time in his life he felt a surge of sympathy for his Terran grandparents. Unloving and cold they had seemed; and yet they had taken him in as a son and never once had theyreproached him with his unknown, alien mother or his mixed blood. He longed to rise, fling challenge at Auster; he half rose to his feet, but Kennard’s angry look fixed him in his seat; and Hastur’s ringing voicecommanded, “Enough!”

“Lord Hastur—”

“Not a word!” Hastur’s angry, emphatic voice silenced even Auster. “We are not here to rake up the

deeds and misdeeds of men and women a generation dead!”

“Then, under favor, Lord Hastur, why are we here?” asked Neyrissa. “I have given Kerwin the

monitor’s oath; he will do for a mechanic’s circle.”

“But a Keeper’s circle?” Hastur asked. “Are you all ready to risk him for that? To do again what Arilinn

could do in Leonie’s time and has not done since? Are you ready for that?”

There was silence, a deep silence, and Kerwin sensed that there was fear in it. Even Kennard was silent. At last Hastur added, urgently, “Only the Keeper of Arilinn can make that decision, Elorie. And thedelegation awaits the word of Arilinn’s Keeper.”

“I don’t think we ought to risk it,” Auster said. “What is the delegation to us? The Keeper should

choose in her own good time!”

“The risk is
 
mine
 
—to accept or refuse!” Two spots of angry color burned in Elorie’s cheek. “I have never before used my authority; I am not a witch, not a sorceress, I will not let men place on me the supernatural power…” She spread her hands in a little, helpless gesture. “Yet, for good or ill, I am Arilinn; authority rests by law in me, Elorie of Arilinn. We will hear the delegation. There is no more to be said; Elorie has spoken.”

There were bent heads, murmurs of assent, and Kerwin, watching, was shocked. Among themselves,they quarreled with Elorie and argued points with her without hesitation; this public assent had the feel ofritual.

Elorie turned to the door, stately and unbending. Kerwin watched her, and suddenly felt at one with herdisquiet. He
 
knew
 
, not quite knowing how the knowledge had come to him, how Elorie hated to invokeher supreme and ritual authority; how much she disliked the superstitious awe surrounding her high office. Suddenly this pale, childish girl seemed
real
 
to him, her calmness merely a mask for passionateconvictions, for emotions so severely controlled that they were like the eye of the hurricane.

Page 102

And I thought her calm, emotionless? A mask she wears, no more, only a mask no one canremove, not even she herself…

He felt Elorie’s emotions as if they were his own.

So I’ve done what I swore I would never do. I’ve used their conditioned reverence for a Keeper,just to force them to do what I want! But I had to, oh, I had to, or we’d have another hundredyears of this superstitious rubbish
 
… And then a thought that, Kerwin knew, shocked Elorie as muchas it shocked him, a flaring, frightening question:
 
Was Cleindori right
 
? And he felt Elorie’s thoughts flareinto silence, knowing she had frightened herself with that last question.

Chapter Nine: Challenge to Arilinn

«^»

Riding down in the shaft, between Taniquel and Elorie, Kerwin was still shaken by the backlash of thatcontact with Elorie. What had Kennard called his gift?
 
Empath
 
—gifted with the power of sensing theemotions of others. He had accepted, intellectually, that this was true; had tested it a little underlaboratory conditions and among the circle. Now, for the first time, it had hit him deep, on the level of hisguts, and he
felt
 
it and knew it.

He didn’t know where they were going. He followed the others. But they went down through the Veiland outside, and into a building near the Tower, that Jeff had never seen before. It was a long, narrow,silk-hung hall, and somewhere a ceremonial gong rang out as they filed into the room. There were a fewspectators in the seats, and before them, at a long table, were half a dozen men.

They were prosperous looking men, most of them middle aged and more, wearing Darkovan dress inthe fashion of the cities. They waited silently while Elorie was announced and took the central chair. The Tower circle seated themselves quietly around Elorie, not speaking.

It was Danvan of Hastur who spoke, at last.

“You are the men who call yourselves the Pan-Darkovan Syndicate?”

One of the men, a heavy-set and swarthy man with fierce eyes, bowed.

“Valdrin of Carthon,
 
z’par servu
 
, my lords and ladies,” he confirmed. “By your leave I will speak for

all.”

“Let me review the situation,” said Hastur. “You have formed a league—”

“To encourage the growth of manufacturing and trade on Darkover, in the Domains and beyond,” Valdrin said. “I hardly need to tell you the political situation—the Terrans and their foothold on our world. The Comyn and the Council, saving your presence, Lord Hastur, have tried to ignore the Terran presence here and its implications for trade—”

Hastur said quietly, “That is not precisely the situation.”

“I won’t bandy words with you,
 
vai dom
 
,” said Valdrin, respectfully but impatiently too. “The facts are

Page 103

these: In view of our agreements with the Terrans, we have an opportunity we’ve never had before, to bring the Domains out of our Dark Ages. Times change. Like it or not, the Terrans are here to stay. Darkover is being swept into the Empire. We can pretend they’re not there, refuse to trade with them, ignore their offers of trade, and keep them locked up inside their Trade Cities, but the barriers we put up will come tumbling down in another generation, maybe two at most. I’ve seen it happening on other worlds.”

Kerwin remembered what the Legate had said, that they left governments alone, but that the people sawwhat the Terran Empire had to give, and started demanding to come into it.
 
It’s almost a mathematicalformula
 
—
 
you can predict the thing
.

Valdrin of Carthon was saying the same thing, quite passionately.

“In short, Lord Hastur, we protest the decision of Comyn Council; we want some of the advantages that